Search

To maintain acceptable turbine airfoil temperatures, film cooling is typically used whereby coolant, extracted from the compressor, is injected through component surfaces. In manufacturing a turbine, the first stage vanes are cast in either single airfoils or double airfoils. As the engine is assembled, these singlets or doublets are placed in a turbine disk in which there are inherent gaps between the airfoils. The turbine is designed to allow outflow of high-pressure coolant rather than hot gas ingestion. Moreover, it is quite possible that the singlets or doublets become misaligned during engine operation. It has also become of interest to the turbine community as to the effect of corrosion and deposition of particles on component heat transfer. This study uses a large-scale turbine vane in which the following two effects are investigated: the effect of a midpassage gap on endwall film cooling and the effect of roughness on endwall film cooling. The results indicate that the midpassage gap was found to have a significant effect on the coolant exiting from the combustor-turbine interface slot. When the gap is misaligned, the results indicate a severe reduction in the film-cooling effectiveness in the case where the pressure side endwall is below the endwall associated with the suction side of the adjacent vane.

Gas turbines for aircraft are designed for operation with a clean inlet air flow. This ideal operational condition is often violated during take-off and landing, where the probability of particle ingestion is high, with sand and dirt being the most commonly observed foreign particles. Current research on particle ingestion has identified several mechanisms that contribute to performance degradation in the turbine: erosion of internal and external surfaces, and flow blockages of film-cooling holes and internal cooling passages. The focus of the study given in this paper is to present a method that identifies the motion of foreign particles within an internal ribbed passage. The method uses a high-resolution, flow field interrogation method known as time-resolved digital particle image velocimetry (TRDPIV). Observations from the two-phase flows showed that particle collisions occurred more frequently on the upstream surface of the ribs, especially in the inlet region. Results from these collisions included substantial particle breakup, and a particle rebounding phenomenon between the upper and lower walls. Comparisons are made to large eddy simulation predicted particle trajectories indicating some agreement, as well as phenomena that are not predicted due to the inherent assumption of the modeling.

Gas turbines are not generally designed for operation with a particle laden inlet flow but, in fact, are commonly operated in unclean environments resulting in dirt, sand, and other debris ingestion. In addition to the negative effects within the main gas path, for aeroengines these particles are pulled into the coolant system where they can clog cooling passages and erode internal surfaces. Unlike previous research that focused on deposition and erosion within the main gas path, this study evaluated blocking in a double wall liner whereby both impingement and film-cooling holes were simulated. Double wall liners are commonly used in the combustor and turbine for combined internal and external cooling of metal components. Specifically, sand blockages were evaluated through comparisons of measured flowrates for a particular pressure ratio across the liner. Four liner geometries were tested whereby the coolant hole size and orientation were varied in test coupons. At ambient temperature, blocking was shown to be a function of the impingement flow area. A significant rise in blocking was observed as sand and metal temperatures were increased. The overlap between the impingement and film-cooling holes was also found to have a significant effect.

The total annual cost for a shell-and-tube-type heat exchanger, which is the sum of the annual power cost plus the fixed charges or annual amortization of the initial cost of the equipment, is found to vary sharply with small changes in tube size when the heat-transfer rate is held constant. Equations are developed reducing the number of assumptions to length of tubes and diameter of tubes for fixed design conditions such as total flow rates in shell and tube and required heat-transfer rate. For a selected length as a parameter, then, the total annual cost can be calculated for each tube diameter. The optimum tube diameter is determined from a graph of these corresponding values which has a well-defined minimum value for the total annual cost. A family of these curves, each having a different length as the parameter, will each have a minimum. These minimal values will all be nearly equal. Another family of curves with standard tube diameter as the parameter will each have a minimum giving the optimum length for each diameter. Therefore only one convenient parameter need be selected from which the optimum combination can be determined from a curve. Since the required heat-transfer-surface area is now known, the number of tubes for this combination follows automatically.